Pretty When You Cry
by Firecracker1
Summary: It seems one of the Slayers can't stop hurting the other


TITLE: Pretty When You Cry  
AUTHOR: Firecracker  
FANDOM: Buffy the Vampire Slayer  
PAIRING: Buffy/Faith  
RATING: R for sex, violence and naughty words  
FEEDBACK: Is very much desired and appreciated. Falling_star_1013@hotmail.com  
ARCHIVE: List archives yes, otherwise want, ask, take, have  
DISCLAIMER: Faith sadly isn't mine. She and Buffy belong to the still-great Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. The song belongs to the excellent Vast and can be found on their album Visual Sensory Auditory Theater.  
WARNING: This contains 2 women in a sexual relationship. If your reaction to this is "eww!", please leave now. Also contains possible reasonably disturbing violent themes.   
OTHER WARNING: It's a songfic. If you loathe them, don't read.   
  
  
//You're made of my rib or baby  
you're made of my sin  
And I can't tell where your lust ends   
And where your love begins//  
  
I just get angry sometimes. It's not as if I set out to hurt, it just seems to happen. I feel bad about it afterwards, but she comes in late so often, and how am I to know where she's been or what she's been doing, who she's been doing? She stands there in all this tough-girl leather, and she looks so abjectly contrite, and she apologises as soon as she gets in. Her eyes are so scared, like rabbits', and why should she be so frightened? She doesn't need to be, it infuriates me that she's so pathetic. She's strong, she used to be so hard, and she could fight, but when I hit her, she just gasps in pain and takes it, hangs her head. And it makes me mad. She shrinks into a child, and all that stone exterior is stripped away, she's just vulnerable and breakable. It's quite something, to see that child in the body of a Slayer. Her eyes are soft, terrified, and she's so beautiful.  
  
//I didn't want to hurt you baby  
I didn't want to hurt you  
I didn't want to hurt you   
But you're pretty when you cry//  
  
A rush of love, anger subsides; she crouches there, bruises purple against her skin so smooth, lips full and red and shaking, body tense in anticipation of blows and face young. I pull her to me and hold her, feel her uncertain and apprehensive, and as I kiss her she unwillingly relaxes. The room heats up, and I tear off her clothes, run my hands and mouth all over her body. But still I feel that not-quite-disappeared fear in her. It pervades her now.  
  
//And the moon gives me permission  
and I enter through her eyes  
She's losing her virginity and  
all her will to compromise//  
  
It's not as if she's weak, I remember the fights, the thrills and the passions. She could give as good as gets, it's not my fault if she chooses not to. It's a bit of a test, and if she goes on failing, what else is there to do but repeat it, give her another chance? You mustn't think though that anything I do is calculated, cold-hearted, it's so far from that. It happens. It happens like someone else enters me and I watch a little bemused, and I feel, anger or pain or love or all those and more. She kindles a spark in me which lies in ashes the rest of the day. I have to do it; it spreads a heat of red and gold, my eyes leave black and white for a while, she gives me those fires. Maybe it lights her up too, maybe it delivers her from a grey. Because after all, she never complains, she stays here; so she can't mind it too much. Can she?  
  
  
//I didn't want to hurt you baby  
I didn't want to hurt you  
I didn't want to hurt you  
But you're pretty when you cry//  
  
I'd do so much to see the softness in her, in all the time I've known her (it seems like I've known her since the dawn of time) I live for those moments when the stone or ice is shed and her eyes are clear. When she sleeps I watch her, breath like her soul leaving her and then drawn back in, tiny sighs; eyelids flickering and I think what phantoms stalk her in her mind. Sometimes I touch her and she starts awakes, eyes like frightened prey, and terror as she sees me above her; my heart fills with an excitement. I only know that vulnerability in her when she looks in my eyes; I make her soft and malleable, beautiful. I am proud then. The power is mine alone, and I am strong. Stronger than her... I *am* better. Fights we had for supremacy as she tried to bring me down to her level, told me I was just like her, but she was wrong. I'm better, I am, I lead and she follows and I rule her. She fears me.  
  
//I didn't want to fuck you baby  
I didn't want to fuck you  
I didn't want to fuck you  
But you're pretty when you're mine//  
  
Curls falling around her shoulders, body arching back, red lips, pumping, filled with blood, red nipples, red where I dug my nails into her, and a little trickle of blood. I breathe it in, taste it in the air, lick it and pretend it doesn't make me high. I guess she was right about the lust. I bite down, tighten my grip, she stifles a cry. Harder, and she lets it out. I thrust into her, fingers, face, attacking, and I drown in her. I fall into crimson and rust heat, and nothing hurts and I float.   
  
//I didn't really love you baby  
I didn't really love you  
I didn't really love you  
But I'm pretty when I lie//  
  
She always was a slut, exploiting it, flaunting it, squeezing herself into that leather and sensual and I'd shrink from all that raw sex. Radiates from her in waves of threat, violence, sexuality. When she dances, wild and free; it's too much and someone needs to keep that under control. Doesn't do to get too sure of yourself, and that sex she gives out can shatter; I remember how she nearly killed Xander, not to mention fucking Riley for me. And Angel, Angel most of all - we all know how dangerous sex can be if it gets into the wrong hands. It's a common myth that cruel and loveless sex is pain, but it's wrong. It's the beautiful and blissful and all-encompassing sort that creeps up like a silent, jewelled snake and rips you apart. There needs to be a taint, a bitter taste to keep you anchored to the ground and prevent the chaos, stop the abyss opening up. I couldn't let that happen, could I? So I provide a taint and this way's better for everyone.  
  
//You hurt me baby  
I hurt you baby//  
  
Is it a repentance thing, maybe it is, self-flagellation for her. And if she wants to be punished who am I to deny it? She needs it. Fuck knows she's done enough - I won't ever forget that look in her eyes, cruel and charged. Too many times, shattering me, shattering my existence and I lay in thousands of little glass pieces and she stood and crushed them under her foot. The catalogue of sins is too long to relate. And after all I did for her; I won't make that mistake again. Subjugation and she won't run. I show her I rule, and she pays for her crimes in blood and silent tears. That's the way the world works, an eye for an eye. A blow, pain shocking through her, she'll know not to try it again. I'll keep her chained, reined in. because I need her here, I can't ever let her leave; she's mine and I wonder, I drown in her skin. I taste her and the world belongs to me, opens up before me in all its colours and life sparking electricity. I won't let that go. Can't ever leave, I need and fear draws her closer in.  
  
//If you knew how much I loved you  
you would run away  
but when I treat you bad  
it always makes you want to stay//  
  
Well, rage is a powerful thing, and once you start it, it propels you along the path - blood on blood on bruise on bruise, of course she heals quickly but the bruises always seem to be there. Love opens up in me, chokes me from the inside, an inky black flower growing and growing. I don't know what it's like for her. It's in my veins and my lungs and poisons my soul, and I don't know what I see. Sometimes I just want to hold her close, but when I do I feel that wariness, that fear etched in her skin and I get mad. And mad can mean a lot of things, raving and in love and furious and despairing and frenzied. I am all of these and more, and I hit her harder and I'm filled.   
  
//I didn't want to hurt you baby//  
  
She cowers and she's so beautiful, I savour the depths of her eyes. Power in me, she hurts and lust rushes through my blood. I pull her head back, grip tight in her hair so her eyes s smart, kiss her hard and pull at her lips with my teeth. Shove her against the wall, hear her whimper like an animal caught in a trap; and she deserves all the pain I can give her, and I hurt and I hurt and I fuck her and I try to fall.  
  
//I didn't want to hurt you baby//  
  
It rushes through me as she cries out, and I feel the blood and the cruelty. She's under me now once and for all, and if I hurt her enough then she won't leave. She won't leave.  
  
//I didn't want to hurt you baby//  
  
The bruises on her are subtle shades, of purple, of blue, such pretty colours on the pale skin. I am an artist. I won't let them fade, I won't let her fade.  
  
//I didn't want to hurt you baby//  
  
The more scars she wears the more she is tied to me.   
  
She's so pretty when she screams. 


End file.
